From: Robo <robo@...>
Date: 2003-05-10T10:23:53+09:00
Subject: Is there a tutorial on parsing text?

I'm thinking of building a TV Guide viewer in Ruby.

Currently, to view a TV Guide, I have to go to a website, select the
channels and date I want to view.

The problem is that it only lets me select 3 channels at a time, view one
day at a time, and I have to wait for the webpage to load everytime.

So, I'm thinking of getting ruby to send a HTTP POST to that site,
requesting for all the channels and dates, and hopefully I'll end up with
the HTML. Then I'll strip the HTML to just the channel names, programs,
times of the programs, and dates and store them somewhere. Then I should be
able to use tell Ruby which channels I wanna view, and it'll show it to me
immediately.

Later on, I might even be able to create a GUI for it using FXRuby or
something.

The thing is, I have no idea how to do these things. How to send HTTP POST
using Ruby, how to get the HTML pages back, how to extract the TV programs
out of those HTML pages.

So, can anyone provide any help or links on how to do this kinda things, and
is there a better method to accomplish this than the one I mentioned?

Robo